Expert: USS Cincinnati Would Support Itself

Years May Pass Before Museum Opens

The USS Cincinnati, a decommissioned nuclear submarine, may be placed on a barge next to the Great American Ballpark as an educational museum, WLWT Eyewitness News 5's Mark Kahler reported.

Capt. Channing Zucker, retired from the U.S. Navy and now the head of the Historic Naval Ships Association, has been consulting with the group of businessmen who want to bring the submarine to Cincinnati, Kahler said.

Zucker said that more than 80 similar exhibits, like the USS Nautilus in Groton, Conn., which the Cincinnati group toured last summer, already operate successfully, Kahler said.

The Submarine Cincinnati Museum Foundation will open an office next month in Longworth Hall, and it recently received a study showing the economic viability of its proposal, which is important to their $12 million fundraising effort, Kahler said.

"We weren't ready to really approach anyone and ask them to help support this project until we ourselves were convinced that it was viable," Submarine Cincinnati Museum Foundation representative Joe Jaap said.

The USS Cincinnati may not reach the riverfront for some time, despite the fact that no public money would be involved and it should support itself once it is in place, Kahler said.

"Actually, the time it's going to take seems to fit in with what I have seen with the other improvements and development that's going on right here on the riverfront," Jaap said.

The USS Cincinnati currently sits in Puget Sound, Washington, waiting to be scrapped in October, which would cost $25 million. Although nothing has been promised, the Navy could delay that deadline or suspend it altogether, Kahler said.